Not everyone believes me when I tell them that LinkedIn is actually trying to simplify and make the member experience easier. It is, relatively speaking. LinkedIn has come a long, long way in how it looks and how much you can accomplish within the platform. This is also true of LinkedIn Recruiter, LinkedIn’s flagship recruiting product.
When I first started working in LinkedIn Recruiter three years ago it was good, but today, it’s filled with smart ways to increase communication internally and with candidates, manage your recruiting workflow and decrease the time to hire. And, if you follow LinkedIn closely you know the stock they place in InMails and their best practices. We couldn’t agree more. InMails are invaluable and stand out in a way regular messages and email does not. You may not like them but you have to admit they catch your attention (even if pitchy and not well written). Remember, LinkedIn changed their InMail policy for everyone, and for recruiters in particular, in January 2015.
LinkedIn recently announced a June-July 2015 target for an InMail update in LinkedIn Recruiter. InMail will take on a new look, be more efficient and include features to make InMailing more personal and effective. You’ll be able to view the candidates full profile while crafting your message:
Yes, think craft rather than write. It should be a creative, thoughtful, compelling message. Seeing the candidate’s profile will hopefully inspire you to pull out key pieces of information that will show the candidate you actually know something about them.
Take the next step and connect something specific in their profile to the role or company you are hoping to speak to them about. Maybe it’s a key project or result, accomplishment, mission etc. Remember, your goal is to start a conversation and make the InMail work for you.
You’ll see the new InMail design is simpler and let’s you sort through your templates, keep track of message length and really amp up your recruiting game. There won’t be any excuse for generic, off-the-mark InMails from recruiters now, except their own lack of attention.
I’m also looking forward to seeing if this ultimately rolls out to Premium Members.
